Ugo Rondinone - NUDE

The Museum of Cycladic Art is pleased to announce an exhibition by the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, under the title nude. The exhibition is a new site specific installation. 

Rondinone intervened and changed everything about the space, the floor, the light and the colours of the walls and ceiling to create his characteristically otherworld, dreamlike environment.  

A special sculpture wall was installed in the first room to make sure this world is separated from everyday life. Neon lights and a lightbox sculpture create an even light that confuses our sense of time or place. Seven life-sized nude figures inhabit the space, in peaceful repose, informally posed on the floor. Jointed like store-window mannequins, the figures are exquisitely detailed, as they are cast in wax directly from the human body. 

The sections of each figure are made of different earth colors, a mixture of wax and earth pigments. Naked and vulnerable, they seem to be resting after having performed. Rondinone himself says he chose dancers at the peak of their youth, bodies full of energy to accentuate the contradiction with their state of slumber. Why are they resting? From what? Maybe from life? Did they ever have their own life? 

In the context of the Museum of Cycladic Art, where the figurines of the permanent collection, dating from 3000BC, remain hermetically closed, resting in enigmatic serenity, Rondinone’s resting figures invite the viewer to reflect on the evolution of the figuration through the centuries but also on how humanity deals with existential question through time.

The Museum of Cycladic Art is situated at 4 Neofytou Douka St in Kolonaki (tel 210-722-8321/3)